


Steamy Windows

by RowboatCop



Series: Cliche Interruptus (or 5 Times the Avengers Interrupt Skye and Coulson During a Sex Cliche, and One Time They Don't) [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Chloe needs to give Clark's glasses back, Coulson can be stupid, Coulson has a stupid sexy face, F/M, Flirting, In a Car, Making Out, Mild Angst, Natasha and Skye should be best friends, Skye can be stupid too, Spy Glasses, This is Chloe Bennett and Clark Gregg's Fault, Ward is a Nazi, Ward threatened to rape Skye (mentioned), undercover-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-05
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 21:58:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2084619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/pseuds/RowboatCop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson has been avoiding Skye after their...encounter...at the Laundromat in "Dirty Laundry." After completing an undercover mission (while Coulson is wearing undercover!glasses) they finally come to an agreement in the SUV. </p>
<p>Which agreement is, of course, interrupted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steamy Windows

**Author's Note:**

> Part II: Undercover/In a Car (with glasses)
> 
> You know those pictures from SDCC where Chloe stole Clark's glasses? And the one where he was trying to glare at her, but she's too adorable to glare at? Like...ugh. Yeah. They are destroying me.

Skye and Coulson climb into the SUV, which is parked in an alley in New York, and she heaves a sigh of relief that they’re done and ready to return to the base. She’s a little surprised when, instead of shifting into drive, Coulson turns towards her and smiles.

He’s wearing a black t-shirt and his spy glasses, and he looks like...not quite himself. The thick black frames hold FitzSimmons’s phase 2 prototype replication of the Centipede cameras, small enough to be completely unnoticeable. Mostly, it just looks like he’s wearing glasses, and they don’t look half bad on Coulson.

They actually look pretty great on Coulson, but she’s keeping that to herself.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Coulson asks the question with a smile, and Skye tries to return it.

“No,” she answers. “I mean...no.”

He frowns, and his concern is too much for her. It bothers her that he’s been able to tell that this mission — her first undercover mission for New SHIELD — has been a source of nagging worry for her.

“You did a great job,” he tells her.

Skye rolls her eyes because she already knows that, but she also knows that his need to tell her she did well isn’t specific to this mission — Coulson has always been like that. He’s always been serious about validating her ideas and her work, about valuing her and her skillset. It’s one of a million reasons that she’s head over heels for him.

But she should be better than getting panic attacks at the thought of a mission with parameters that were basically as innocuous as ‘hang out at the library.’

“I know.” They found their suspect, tagged him, covertly copied the data that was delivered to him on a flash drive. It was a total success.

“Want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

“Nothing.” She shrugs, and Coulson looks vaguely hurt that she’s not talking.

Which pisses her off a little bit, since the man has been hiding in his office for the past week pretending that they didn't some sort of step last week in a laundromat outside of DC.

“You can talk to me, you know? I understand.”

She does know, and she sighs.

“The last official undercover mission I went on ended with me getting shot. And the last _un_ official undercover mission I went on involved letting myself get kidnapped.”

Coulson nods once and reaches across the middle console to grab her hand.

“Do you still think about it?”

“No,” she lies, shaking her head. “Yes.” Skye rolls her eyes at herself. “Not a lot, but...nightmares sometimes. About what he did. And what...he could have done.”

She’s not sure which ones are the worst. The ones about what did happen (Ward pushing himself up against her, Skye too afraid to back away), what almost happened (Ward forcing himself on her, giving her no chance to say no), or what could have happened (Ward murdering Coulson, making her watch).

Coulson’s hand squeezes down on hers, and she can see him take a deep, slow breath.

“They’ll get better with time,” he promises her, and his eyes say that he _knows_ and that he’s been there, too. It’s physically painful to think about Coulson being hurt or afraid, and she squeezes his hand back.

Their eyes lock as their palms press together, and she’s grateful that he’s not looking down — not broadcasting an image of their hands to the rest of the team on his spy glasses. She’s not excited by the prospect of anyone bugging her about what’s changed between them, especially because the answer is that nothing actually has.

Their almost-kiss last week has not become a real kiss. They haven’t talked about it — the fact that they almost kissed, why they almost kissed, whether and when they plan to kiss for real. (The fact that their almost-kiss was more intimate than many of Skye’s fully realized kisses.)

Coulson, she decides, is a very confusing man. He’s been careful to avoid being alone with her this week, careful to avoid any situations where they might talk about what happened (or repeat it somewhere they won't be interrupted, which is the course of action that gets Skye’s vote). And yet here he is, holding her hand.

She’s been purposely taking it easy on him — which basically means she’s been letting him hide from her — and has made a promise to herself that she’ll stop flirting with him. So moments like this one, ones that make her want to act on this _thing_ between them, are dangerous.

He _does_ want her. It’s so beyond obvious that he _wants_ her, but she cannot — _cannot_ — handle the idea of him closing himself in his office again.

So even though she longs for the contact, Skye slides her hands out of Coulson’s.

After all, however much she’s in love with him, the relationship they have always had — one with some flirtation and sexual awareness but mostly a lot of freely given comfort and companionship and respect — is worth having. If she has to choose between that and the hot/cold act she’s gotten this week...it’s really not a choice at all.

“Skye,” he whispers her name, pulling her out of her thoughts. She meets his eyes and sort of melts under the look he’s giving her. His eyes are soft, his mouth quirked in an almost-smile, and it’s basically complete and total adoration. Skye loves that look, _lives_ for that look. It makes her stomach flutter and her hands shake and her heart beat too fast.

Except that she’s suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that his glasses are _spy glasses_ and she’s on camera. FitzSimmons or May or Trip could be somewhere back at the Playground watching her swoon at Coulson and his stupid sexy face, and that’s just _not_ okay.

So she reaches up and snatches the glasses, setting them on her own nose as though it’s a game and not a defense mechanism.

Coulson frowns at first, looking more than a little put out, but doesn’t debase himself by reaching for them or fighting to get them back. When she faces him and does her duck face, turning her head to each side and modeling for him, he smiles.

“How do I look?”

“Very cute,” he pronounces. His gaze is soft again as he considers her, and it’s his adoration face but colored with desire as his eyes rake over her. That face does things to her, makes her lower belly feel hot and liquid.

She’s grateful that whatever look she’s making in return is definitely not on camera, which of course reminds her that Coulson’s _is_. She turns forward, then, looking out the windshield and giving him a chance to pull himself together.

He does not take the opportunity.

“Skye.” He leans in so his lips are, like, _right_ against her ear, and her whole body turns into goosebumps. She shivers really _really_ noticeably, and Coulson responds by puffing out a little laugh against her earlobe.

“Hmmm?” She tries to sound professional, or _anything_ other than completely turned on. She fails.

“Give me back the glasses.” He doesn’t speak so much as growl, and the sound of his voice _right there_ makes it hard to breathe. She makes a valiant effort, though, trying to collect herself and not look like a complete mess.

“But I want to wear them for a while.” She turns a fake pout at him, but all it accomplishes is bringing them face to face. Their noses touch, and Coulson doesn’t look manipulated at all — more like a man who’s getting exactly what he wants out of a situation.

His smirky face is sexy, too, and Skye wonders if there’s any face Coulson can make that isn’t sexy.

Skye quickly turns forward again.

What is _wrong_ with him anyways? Why is he not thinking about the fact that someone could be watching this feed? And why is he flirting with her when he doesn’t want more?

“They’re _my_ glasses, Skye.” His gruff whisper of her name right in her ear makes her gasp. It’s like his voice is physically touching her, and her brain sort of melts down her spine, puddling around her hips.

She’s incapable of speech, and then the bastard lets on that he knows exactly what he’s doing by saying her name again. Slowly. “Skye.” Hissing the ‘s’ and stretching out the ‘k’ and making her moan out loud.

Her body, which has always been a traitor around Coulson, shudders so that she presses closer to him, pushes her arm against him. He chuckles again, little puffs of air over her ear.

Bastard.

The only thing that saves her is that she can _feel_ him smirking. It’s the desire not to appear weak, to at least _seem_ like she’s not just letting him have the upper hand, that makes her reply.

“I thought they were the team’s glasses.”

“I’m the team leader, aren’t I?” His lips actually brush against her ear, and it’s just over. Her head falls to the right, totally of its own volition, baring as much of her neck to him as it can. All she can think about is his lips on her skin, kissing and nipping everywhere he can reach.

“What are you doing to me?” She tries to make it sound angry, but it comes across more like pleading — begging.

“I must be doing it wrong if you have to ask.” Coulson’s voice is further away from her ear, sounding thoroughly put out, and she turns to look at him.

It takes her a moment to pull it together — to get past the way the whole left side of her body is tingly and hypersensitive.

“You don’t want this,” she informs him.

He narrows his eyes at her.

“Why would you say that?”

“Because I _know_ what wanting this looks like, and it doesn’t look like locking yourself in your office all week.”

He nods, once, almost a concession.

“I had to think about some things,” he tells her, head tilted to the side.

“Which things were you thinking about?”

“Whether this is a terrible idea. Whether I’m taking advantage of you.”

“You’re not,” she cuts in, scowling at him. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’re young.” As though she was unaware; as though that’s all she is.

“Is that how you think of me? As young?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “But other people do, and…”

“...and what you’re really worried about is what everyone else will say.”

He looks incredibly guilty at that accusation, and Skye rolls her eyes.

“No offense, _Director_ Coulson, but that says to me that this,” she gestures between them, “probably _is_ a bad idea.” She manages to say it like it doesn’t break her heart, but it really, really _does_.

“Skye…”

“Sir… Phil.” His eyes blink shut at her use of his first name, which is not something she ever ever uses. “You’re pretty much the most important person in my life, and I _cannot_ live with you avoiding me. This week was terrible, and I can’t have you repeating it every time you get nervous about what other people are going to think about the fact that you’re attracted to another legal adult.”

Coulson opens his eyes and stares at her. There’s _so much_ in his gaze, and it makes her stomach bottom out.

“I’m sorry,” he starts. Skye rolls her eyes, but Coulson reaches across the seat and grasps her hand again. “I _am_. Please believe that this week wasn’t fun for me, either. It won’t ever happen again.”

“How do I know that?”

“I guess you don’t,” he admits. “But I can show you. Let me show you.”

“And when May glares at you? When someone in new SHIELD thinks you made me your right hand because we’re sleeping together?”

Coulson almost laughs.

“I’ve known May for a long time, I can handle her glares. And you’re a competent agent on your own. Anyone who looks at you will be able to tell that you belong where you are. I haven’t shown you preferential treatment.”

Skye smirks at that, at the idea that he spent his week convincing himself of this.

“You’ve _always_ shown me preferential treatment, AC.” She grins at him, trying to make it a joke, but he shakes his head.

“No, I’ve always valued you exactly as much as you deserve.”

He isn’t making his adoration face. He’s just looking at her with such seriousness and earnestness and...Coulson-ness. It makes her want to kiss him even more than the adoration face when he looks at her like this — like he believes in her in a way so few people ever have.

She slams her eyes closed, takes a deep breath to calm herself. The truth is that she’s _always_ wanted to kiss Coulson.

It’s the feeling of his nose brushing against hers that makes her open her eyes, and all the deep breaths in the world couldn’t calm her down.

“Is this okay?” He looks nervous, compared to the quiet assurance of his earlier performance, and Skye finds it completely charming.

“Yes,” she answers, swaying towards him but stopping herself before their lips brush. “The camera!”

“Is off,” he tells her, as though she’s slow. She can hear the silent question — whether he would have ever been so obvious if others could be watching. But then, _she_ was pretty obvious when she thought others were watching, so….

She reaches up and pulls off the glasses, setting them on the dash.

“I didn’t know it had an off,” she mumbles as his lips close in on hers.

“One of the additions of Phase 2. I insisted.”

Her answer is just a hum at the back of her throat when Coulson’s hand comes up to cup her cheek. Slowly, he angles her lips towards his and leans the rest of the way in to kiss her.

Once his mouth touches hers, though, their kiss is not remotely soft or slow. One hand grips the back of her head and the other holds fast to her shoulder, ensuring that she can’t pull away before he’s done with her. His mouth is hungry, as though devouring something that he has denied himself for too long.

She can feel how much Coulson wants her as his trembling hands hold her to him, as his tongue maps out her mouth. But Skye has never been one to just allow herself to be passively devoured.

He groans into her mouth when she nips at his lower lip, and she takes the opening to push back against him, running her hands up his arms and down his chest as she kisses him. She never gets to see him in short sleeves, and the musculature of his arms is both fascinating and sexy.

When her hands slide up under his t-shirt, feeling hair over more firm muscle, he lets her take control of the kiss as she touches him. It’s when her fingertips dip under the waist of his jeans that he groans against her and pushes her back, guiding her into the passenger seat as he tries to extend their kiss.

She’s surprised when he climbs on top of her, taking only a second to reach down the side of the seat and pull the recline lever, making them suddenly horizontal.

Skye giggles at the unexpected backwards motion, but Coulson is incredibly focused. He straddles her, managing to fit his knees on either side of her own, and uses his grip on the seat above her shoulders to hold himself above her. Then he kisses her again, hard and demanding, and Skye slides her hands back under his shirt, up his belly and around to his lower back.

When he pulls his lips from hers and sets a soft trail of kisses across her right cheek towards her ear, Skye gladly turns her head, giving him full access. Coulson softly kisses the skin around her ear before breathing a soft stream of air across it.

“God, you were making such sexy noises before,” he whispers.

Her answering moan is met with a smile that she can feel against her neck.

“Like that,” he agrees. He traces the shell of her ear with his nose before whispering her name, and, like before, it makes her whole body throb underneath him.

“Skye,” he repeats it, slowly and carefully, each iteration making her tremble beneath him, sending tingles from her brain down to her hips.

Her hands slide out of his shirt down towards his butt, trying to pull him against her. The seat just isn’t made for it, though, and Skye starts to get restless.

Any patience he had for slowly exploring her reactions quickly evaporates as his lips move down her neck, kissing and nipping at the skin there until she she’s just writhing beneath him.

All she can think is that if they were in the backseat, they could have a little more room. A little more friction. She doesn’t want to have sex with him in a car in an alley, not really, but she _really_ needs a little more.

“Coulson,” she murmurs his name, and although he hums out an acknowledgement, he doesn’t stop except to release a light bite and replace his teeth with his tongue.

“Phil,” she tries.

He goes still at that, and she can feel a shuddering breath against her neck.

“Again,” he whispers into her skin. She laughs.

“Let’s move to the backseat, Phil,” she tells him.

“Fuck,” he grunts into her neck before he pulls back just enough to kiss her. A brief kiss grows into several, but he’s still propped over her and it’s frustratingly not enough.

“Backseat?” She’s impatient — she just wants to feel his hips pressing between her legs, just wants to feel his whole body against hers — and she thinks Coulson is suddenly on the exact same page.

“Yes,” he sighs, kissing her once more before moving away. He climbs back over the middle console and takes just a few seconds to straighten his hair before he opens the door and steps out of the car.

Skye is about to follow, except that an arm clad in black leather wraps itself around Coulson’s neck the moment he’s outside the car. Skye has a half second of panic, but then her training kicks in. She reaches into the glove compartment and pulls out an ICER before jumping out of her door and racing around the back of the SUV.

She only sees the back of the woman who is threatening Coulson, but she immediately drops down and sweeps her leg out in a disabling kick that she has drilled again and again with May. The woman falls to the ground and Skye has the ICER pointed at the assailant’s face at the same moment that she sees an arrow, aimed at her head, in her peripheral vision.

“Agent Barton,” Coulson greets the second assailant, his voice disgustingly calm. “Could I ask you to lower your weapon, please?”

“I’ll be happy to, when your friend lowers hers.”

“I promise, Skye’s gun is non-lethal.”

Skye watches Barton’s eyes squint at the ICER for a moment, and then he nods and puts away his bow. Her hand is shaking as she slides her ICER into the waist of her jeans, and she’s grateful when Coulson’s fingers find hers, gripping her hand and pulling her towards him so that they face Barton and Romanoff together.

Both former agents look confrontational, and Skye can’t help stepping slightly in front of Coulson.

“Traveling with a bodyguard, now?” Romanoff’s voice is wry, and she looks Skye over before returning her hard gaze to Coulson. “Good. You need one.”

Coulson just smiles at the barb, but Skye bristles next to him. His hand squeezes hers, silently assuring her that he’s not offended.

“I like her,” Romanoff says as her sharp eyes take in their positions, and her haughty, confrontational look melts into something that could almost be a smile. Skye can feel Coulson relax next to her.

“It seems rumors of your death were greatly exaggerated,” Barton quips.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you both personally.” Coulson looks between both of them as he speaks, conveying his sincerity.

They both must have known, Skye realizes. Unlike Steve Rogers, they had high level clearance in SHIELD, and they must have known something.

There’s a long, charged moment that Skye understands more than she would have a year ago. These are three highly trained agents, all of whom live in a world of secrets and orders and missions, and all of whom also have a great deal of loyalty to each other. What she doesn’t understand is how you overcome that, can’t even imagine Coulson not contacting her for an entire year after lying about his own death.

She would punch him in the face, she thinks, and _almost_ feels bad for stopping Agent Romanoff from doing just that.

“We’ve heard the chatter about you,” Barton tells him. “It’s good to know that it was true.” Romanoff nods her agreement.

Both of them look haunted, though, and Skye knows that part of it is everything that’s happened since HYDRA revealed itself. Part of it, though, is that both of them — especially Barton — have taken Coulson’s death hard. Coulson has related the story to her, and she knows that were she in Barton’s shoes, she would feel responsible — even though it’s not true.

“Nothing that happened was your fault,” Coulson says.

Barton nods once, but it’s clear he has a deep wound about all of the events surrounding the battle of New York — has taken more blame on himself than he deserves.

Skye then eyes Romanoff, who is also looking at Coulson. She’s better at hiding her emotions than Barton is, but it’s there anyways — this raw hurt written across her face at the fact that she was kept in the dark, not allowed into Coulson’s inner circle. It’s there, but Skye thinks she wouldn’t be able to see if she didn’t understand it so, so well. (She knows _exactly_ what it feels like to have someone she respects, someone she loves, tell her that she’s just not the right fit.)

And then whatever emotions were written over the group are gone.

“We’ve been tailing your mark for the past week,” Romanoff says, all business. “Steve and I suspect he’s got some strong connections to HYDRA.”

“He does,” Coulson confirms. "We got a copy of the information he was passed tonight."

"How did you manage that?" Romanoff looks incredibly impressed, and Skye can't quite hold back a smile. 

"Skye," Coulson makes the introduction, dropping her hand so that she can shake Romanoff's and then Barton's.

"You're a hacker?" Romanoff asks the question with interest, and Skye nods.

"I used to be with the Rising Tide."

"Ah, another agent pulled from the enemy camp." Barton nudges Romanoff's shoulder with his and earns a withering glare, which he accepts with a smile.

"And are you going to tell us why you two are tailing suspected HYDRA sympathizers?" Romanoff asks the question as though she already knows the answer, and Barton elbows her.

“It’s obvious the rumors were true, Tasha,” he mumbles to her. “You’re taking over as director?”

Coulson nods.

"Fury asked me to take over, and I've made Skye my right hand."

“Is  _that_ what you’re calling it?” Barton half-laughs the line, but both Romanoff and Skye turn hard glares on him, and he immediately holds his hands up in apology. “Joking,” he says. “Joking. You obviously know what you’re doing.”

Coulson raises his eyebrows at Skye, as though silently asking her to see — he didn’t panic at the insinuation.

She rolls her eyes at him in return.

"I was going to contact you both, soon," Coulson continues. "If you'd like to come back to our headquarters, Skye can show you what she found tonight." 

There are clearly more important things tonight than making out in the SUV, but when Coulson reaches back down and slides their fingers together, the pressure of his hand in hers is a nice promise that he isn't going to run from her this time.


End file.
